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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Classroom Activity to Practice Large Numbers in Spanish

What number is written here?

by Ann Abbott

I have blogged here before about how important it is that our Spanish community service learning students know how to say and understand numbers in Spanish. The problem is, we and they think that they already know how to do that. But when they have to use large numbers or strings of numbers for a specific purpose--getting down a telephone number, address, ITIN number, etc.--and it is very important that they get it right, students really need additional practice in our classes.

Several years ago, José Miguel Lemus was a TA for "Spanish in the Community" and helped me immensely with the administration of the course and the communication with students and community partners. Now he is at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Here is an activity about numbers that he suggested, and that I will definitely use in my class when I teach it again:

You're right, Jill: 18! I hope you'll be able to go back to Spain, travel the world, and just in general keep that sense of adventure alive in your life. It's part of who you are.I love looking at cultural differences (including how we write 1, 7 and z!). :)